Tuesday, 12 August 2014

1993: THE MARVEL UK TITLES THAT NEVER WERE.

This hails from COMICS INTERNATIONAL issue 35 (September 1993) and represents something of a "What if…?"

It's a news report hawking MARVEL UK's latest slate of GENESIS 92 titles pitched at the (just about) still booming US market. All of which were due to hit shelves in November 1993. Unfortunately, this is the moment that the short-lived, speculator-fuelled boom turned to bust and the bottom dropped out the market. Marvel UK were hit hard and started to retrench straight away.

Think of this is as their "Battle of the Bulge" moment… one last expansionist push before being overtaken by reality and forced to retreat and… within months… surrender.

Here's a handy scorecard to track what happened to these projects:

MARVEL FRONTIER COMICS UNLIMITED - The first issue of this would-be quarterly survived the closure of the entire Frontier Comics imprint and shipped as the one-shot MARVEL FRONTIER COMICS SPECIAL. Plans for issue two and beyond were quietly abandoned.

WARHIDE - Was cancelled pre-publication and never appeared.

OFFICER OUTBODY - Was also cancelled before the first issue shipped and the material never resurfaced.

REMOVAL MAN VS. MOTORMOUTH - The return of Harley Davidson was solicited for several months in MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE… but no issues actually appeared.

RIPWIRE - Never appeared.

DEATH'S HEAD GOLD - Was never officially, as far as I know, cut from quarterly to one-shot but, nevertheless, only one issue appeared.

DEATH METAL - Shipped as planned.

DEATH WRECK - Also shipped as announced. I guess having "Death" in the title of a M-UK book did have its advantages.

DOCTOR WHO: AGE OF CHAOS - This first brand-new-for-the-States Doctor Who comic since the 1960s Dalek movie adaptation never shipped in its intended four-part US format version but it was subsequently released as one staple-straining magazine format one-shot.

You can find an overview of all of MARVEL UK's US-format titles here and here.

SLOW ROBOT

Welcome to STARLOGGED!
It's a repository, and celebration, of Geek Media (mostly print) from the 'Star Age': that pre-millennial period between, roughly, 1972 (the opening of Marvel UK) and 1999 (the release of The Phantom Menace... and the end of innocence). But, of course, we'll bend the rules when we want to.
I only reproduce long out-of-print items for historical reference. I don't include anything that's currently in-print, is likely to be reprinted or otherwise commercially exploited by the copyright holder.
Comments and contributions are most welcome.